


Scream

by MuffyKastel



Category: Tokyo Babylon, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Afterlife, Ambiguity, Ambiguous Figures, Dragons, Implied Reincarnation, Introspection, M/M, Mythology References, Personal Headcanons and Theories, Personal Lore Headcanons, Post-Canon, Post-Manga-Canon, Seishirou-centric, cycle of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffyKastel/pseuds/MuffyKastel
Summary: Seishirou realizes something about himself after he dies.
Relationships: Sakurazuka Seishirou & Sumeragi Hokuto, Sakurazuka Seishirou/Sumeragi Subaru
Kudos: 11





	Scream

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to FF.net in 2019, this version has been heavily re-edited.

Light shines in his eyes and the sounds of the ocean fill his ears.

He wasn’t expecting _this_ from the afterlife, or rather, _being stuck in the tree_. Well, he assumes the last part happened. Subaru should have brought his body back to be buried, right…?

But that’s not all. There’s a young girl with short black hair cropped around her face entering his line of vision. Her green eyes aren’t as dull, but yet, he can’t consider them to be as beautiful as her brother’s. Her eyes are filled with optimism and they sparkle with excitement, something he questions as he lays down and stares at her.

 _‘For what reason does she have to be so excited?’_ He wonders as he takes in her radiance with the sun shining behind her.

But before he could say her name, she leaves his line of sight.

Seishirou bolts up and suddenly, the light from the sky is gone. Around him the world changes, no more of the soft grass he was laying on or the mystical blue sky that surrounded the iridescent sun.

Everything is black, just like his maboroshi.

 _‘At least I know Subaru-kun brought me back to the tree,’_ He thinks. Because if Hokuto is here, then he _must_ be in the tree now. There’s no other answer. There couldn’t _be_ any other answer. He doesn’t want to dwell on the outdoor scenery from before.

 _‘Must be an illusion,’_ He reasons to himself. The tree is playing tricks on him. It was common for the tree to do so. To have a little _fun_ outside of tearing up flesh.

Because for all the years he’s killed and stuffed people under the park of Ueno, he doesn’t actually know what it’s like inside the tree. And he’s very aware the tree knows of this as well. Seishirou always liked to think the souls just got ripped apart, but then the tree informed him one fateful day…

(“They don’t,”

“They don’t what?” A young Seishirou asked suspiciously in his line of rapid-fire questioning.

“They don’t disperse,” The Sakura Tree responds. “They stay within me…and…”

“And what?” Seishirou pestered. He was already getting annoyed with this creature. It gave him no clear answers to what he questioned. He was young and new on the job, so he had a lot of questions for the tree he was killing for. His mother wouldn’t tell him anything; always waved him off and said the tree would explain everything. But here he was, with a million questions, looking for a million answers, and yet receiving none.

He asked what happened to the souls of the people in the tree. He gave logical conclusions to what the sentient sakura tree _would_ and _must_ do with them. Instead, the tree was just being vague and illusive as always.

“They live again. They live within me,” The Sakura Tree finally answers and Seishirou didn’t think it was possible to want to hit the ever living hell out of a talking tree.)

He runs in the darkness, looking for something, _anything_.

“Hokuto-chan!” He calls for her, because there’s no one better to guide him in here other than her, one who’s been in here for nine years. And she _had_ been the one to greet him, so she must be nearby.

And he’s quickly proven to be right, as girlish giggles soon fill the air.

And he stops.

Because he sees her running ahead in a maroon long-shirt and blue skirt. She’s far ahead of him, but he’s still able to make out her figure in dark. It’s strange really, that all around him is pitch black but he can still see so clearly. But that’s not why he stopped chasing after her.

That voice is not Hokuto’s.

It sounds like Hokuto’s, and he was certain anyone who had known Hokuto in life could easily identify it as hers. Subaru himself might be convinced, but Seishirou knows better.

That’s not her tone.

Hokuto didn’t laugh with a whimsical, childlike sound. All breathy and eerie that could easily make someone feel like they were falling from the sky just by listening to it.

Seishirou swears under his breath, "That damn tree!"

It _was_ messing with him! But he couldn’t let Hokuto get away; he had to see where she was running off to. Where she was _leading_ him. So he starts his chase again when she leaves his line of sight. Even if it wasn’t her, he still had to see, _to know_. He has nowhere else to go-

_“Hey, do you know why the Sumeragi’s and the Sakurazuka’s split apart?”_

Hokuto’s uncanny voice fills the air and even though she’s still running ahead, she has her head turned adjacent to look at him. He can’t see her eyes; her head hangs low and the raven-bangs get in the way. He doesn’t know how to respond or what to say.

 _‘Hokuto-chan shouldn’t know about this, about the family history…’_ Seishirou shakes his head. _‘But this isn’t Hokuto-chan. So then why? Why is the tree asking_ me _this?’_

He wants to know, because he too asked the Sakura Tree the same question all those years ago, in the midst of wonderings and curiosity. He asked the tree a lot of questions that would in fruition, never be answered. Eventually, he gave up and tried to delve into research through his family history. There too, he found nothing. He found many records of spells, of family members, even of the first assassination, but never anything specific on the tree.

He always did have an inkling that it had something to do with the Sumeragi’s-with their rivalry-but yet nothing concrete would be given as an answer.

He opens his mouth to shout, to question where this place is, where the real Hokuto is, and _why are you doing this_ , but the voice speaks again.

_“Do you know where you come from?”_

Hokuto doesn’t look at him anymore and she continues to run ahead, but her voice is loud.

_“Do you know why I’m here?”_

Seishirou shakes his head. Another question he recalls himself asking a long time ago. _Why? Why does the Sakura Tree exist?_ He knew it had something to do with the spiritual balance of Japan’s wellbeing. But something intuitive told him this tree existed long before then, long before Japan was even formed.

 _‘How old are you, Tree-chan?’_ He wants to yell his question but his mouth is firmly shut as he runs. Hokuto is getting farther from him and he needs to catch up. It doesn’t even look like she’s really running from him-just running in place-and yet the distance between them grows.

 _“Do you know who I am?”_ Hokuto-no, _it_ , questions, almost amusingly.

_‘No! No I don’t!’_

_“Do you know who you are?”_

It’s the final question it poses before Hokuto disappears from his line of vision. In her stead, beautiful pink petals flow from her direction and he finds himself dashing across them as they litter the floor.

‘ _Sakura petals? But I’m already in the tree-?’_

He’s about to stop and analyze the situation but then up ahead, he sees it.

There’s a faint light from above and it shines on a familiar sight. A clearing, where the ground is being rained upon with fluttering pink petals. Its source is the ancient tree that should be standing in Ueno Park.

_‘The Sakura? But I’m-?’_

He was already dead. He should be in the tree…unless he wasn’t. He couldn’t know for sure where he was. He just assumed that Subaru did the right thing. He could be somewhere else for all he’d known and this was the tree’s way of getting him back. His soul belonged to it after all, and there was a price to be paid if Seishirou did not get trapped inside as he should be. It was probably going to chastise him for not telling Subaru everything about his new position.

He runs closer and stops a good few feet away from it. The sakura petals are rising steadily around them. He’s sure if stands here any longer, the petals would soon reach his knees. He looks up and sees…

Someone hanging on a low branch. A beautiful, stunning figure that he left behind in the world of the living.

Subaru lays stomach-down on a wide, thick branch of the tree that was outstretched. The young man had already been staring at him from the moment of his arrival. His sullen emerald eyes are glazed over in a haunting manner as Seishirou approaches.

 _‘No wait…’_ Something wasn’t right.

The branch Subaru was sitting on hangs low and then moves more outward to Seishirou, but not enough to reach him. Seishirou, realizing this, forces himself to shift through the now thigh-length sakura petals that fall swiftly from the tree. It doesn’t take very long for him to reach Subaru and for a moment the two just stare at each other, taking in each other’s appearance. Subaru looks at him like he hasn’t seen him for eons. The younger man’s long hair is pulled around them, tangled around the branches and Seishirou has to blink.

‘ _No, wait, his hair was never-’_

 _“Making the head of a rival clan our own…my, how peculiar,”_ The face is Subaru’s but the voice is…

“K…kaa-san…?”

 _“However, it’s not like we were really truly rivals after all,”_ an uncharacteristic giggle emerges and Seishirou is suddenly snapped back to reality. It’s neither his mother nor Subaru talking.

“What’s the meaning of this, Tree-chan?” Seishirou inquires softly.

Subaru leans forward and Seishirou is tempted to rub his eyes because they’re getting blurry. The smell of sakura is intoxicating and while he was once able to bear it, now it’s simply too strong. It makes the person in front him shift from Subaru to his mother, and the long, stringy hair slowly starts to droop from the branches as the figure inches closer.

 _“Another old soul…we finally get to speak,”_ Setsuka looks at him with her golden eyes but it’s another voice that speaks. Seishirou’s voice was always deeper, but Subaru’s had acquired a huskier tone over the years.

 _“Another dragon…did you know in the beginning there were only dragons?”_ Sleek, shimmering raven hair and eternal mourning grassy eyes bore into his. But the voice is not his mother or Subaru, instead it retains the ambiguous quality of the Sakura Tree.

“The world…began with dragons, didn’t it?” Seishirou murmurs. He recalls the old tales from his days of learning and studying onmyodo. The ancient myths from a land ever distant to him, the cradle of all civilization and life. Where humans only materialized after the dragons did.

 _‘Was_ this _how old the tree was?’_ But that’s impossible. There was no way the tree was that old, especially if the cradle of all life was on the main land.

Subaru nods. _“And once more, the dragons have returned to land, in new flesh, to seek the new world that has moved on from them,”_

 _‘And what of the end of the world?’_ Seishirou is tempted to ask but the branch lowers itself more till it’s just above his head. And Setsuka slowly crawls down to reach him.

“ _And_ you _have returned to_ me,” Subaru speaks with his mother’s face. His pristine white arms slowly reaches out to him. _“My…my…”_

The sakura petals are up to Seishirou’s torso and are steadily rising to his chest. He brings one of his arms up to the younger man, but the distance between them is still too great and Seishirou cannot get closer at this length. It’s up to Subaru to fill the gap between them.

 _“You…the oldest…and me…the one after you…”_ The Sakura Tree’s careless voice echoes from Subaru’s mouth.

 _“You have returned to me, and yet I cannot have you…”_ It’s all Subaru now, it’s all Seishirou wants to hear and he’s so _close_ -

 _“Do you know what this makes us?”_ Subaru inquires.

“What…it…makes us?” Seishirou manages to say as his throat constricts as the fumes from the sakura make his mind go numb. The petals are up to his chest and it won’t be much longer before they reach his shoulders-

He extends his other arm out and Subaru’s hands are mere centimeters from his own.

 _“It makes us…”_ Subaru whispers.

The sakura petals shutter around his body and he finds himself sinking-

 _“It makes us…”_ Setsuka murmurs.

No! They were so close! He could feel his fingertips touch Subaru’s, but the sea of petals shift in waves, causing him to lose his balance and drop-

 _“It makes us…”_ The Sakura Tree trails off as he cannot hear the rest of it’s about to say; Seishirou submerges within the pink floral flood and Subaru makes no effort to grab him. Instead, Seishirou hears a mixture of childish cackles and sorrowful weeping as he drowns.

And again, light shines in his eyes and the sounds of the ocean fill his ears.

And once more, a young girl with short black hair cropped around her face enters his line of vision. Her green eyes aren’t as dull, but yet at the same time, he can’t consider them to be as beautiful as her brother’s. Hers are filled with optimism and they sparkle with excitement once she realizes he’s awake.

“Sei-chan! You’re here!” Hokuto cheers and Seishirou could only watch as she leans back and stretches her arms out wide. “Welcome to the afterlife!”

She backs up and turns away from him. “Now that you’re here, we can go watch over Subaru together…ya know, seeing as how you left him alive and _totally_ went against my wishes! Like seriously, Sei-chan, what the hell!? At least now, you’re stuck with me for eternity in here and I have forever to yell at you for it…though admittedly that sounds boring. It’s been forever since I’ve had another person to talk to. I’m the only person in this place. It’s so strange,” Hokuto rambles and shakes her head.

Seishirou has a lot of questions to ask her but he can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t even want to get up. His body feels drained and the grassy ground is feeling rather nice, right about now…

Hokuto gives her signature princess laugh and he sees her run off.

“Come on, Sei-chan! Let’s go watch Subaru!”

Seishirou opens his mouth to speak, to retort and tell her to wait, but instead he coughs.

He coughs up sakura petals.

Hokuto doesn’t seem to notice as he hears her giddy laughter getting farther away from him. She probably thinks he’s following in her joyous craze of finally being in contact with another human being after so long.

Seishirou forced his upper half up as he continues to get the sakura petals out of his throat. They paint the black suit he’s wearing in pastel and before he can wipe them off, he feels a sensation burning into his back.

Turning around, there it is. The figure from before.

And without the toxicity from the sakura, he could see the person clearly. It makes him laugh to think that what was once his own power had now become a hindrance; but his clamor only makes more sakura petals erupt from his throat.

Draped in white, wrapped around their slim figure like a cloak and long raven black hair that wisps in the wind, it gradually dawns on Seishirou to who this person is. Why they looked like Subaru, why they reminded him of his mother, why they sounded like the Sakura Tree…

 _“Return to me…”_ They whisper in a low, husky tone. They don’t face Seishirou and instead look straight ahead. Seishirou follows their gaze and is met by a large ocean. Looking down, it appears he’s on a large ledge of grass; if he slid down the gravel, he would be at a beach. Seishirou glances back at the figure and sees that they’re pointing straight ahead.

_“You have returned to me…yet I cannot return to you…”_

Seishirou curses his throat for being clogged, because he wants to respond. He _knows_ who this person is now but he is forced to listen.

 _“As long as there is another me still above, then we can never be together…”_ They say longingly.

And finally, their emerald eyes tear away from the vast ocean and stare into his own amber.

“Su…baru…” Seishirou manages to choke out; throat be damned.

_“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”_

Seishirou shuts his eyes and he recalls an ancient past he should not have known. A world where the cities crumbled, where the people failed to worship their creators, where the dragons went on a rampage and destroyed all. Where the sea rose and the sky collapsed, where nature encompassed everything again. Then the humans were born again and once more the cycle repeats.

 _‘The humans are born and ruin everything,’_ he thinks bemused. Yet the people keep returning to the land because the dragons will it.

He opens his eyes. He knows.

“The sea…” More petals flutter from his mouth, “The sea of…tears…” He splutters as he gazes at the calm blue ocean.

 _“You, the oldest…and me, the one born after you.”_ They speak carefully.

 _“Together, we…”_ They stop and shake their head, deciding to no longer make mention of their past. For a glimpse, Seishirou can see every part of this person who would then make up the entity of Subaru Sumeragi.

 _“Do you know what the Sea of Tears doubles as?”_ They ask and Seishirou nods.

“The sea…the sea of…” The words die on his lips because he doesn’t want to say it. It gives too much away as to who _he_ is and what he’s supposed to know. But he does know; he knows why he’s here and not in the tree, why Hokuto is here, why he and Subaru lived as they did.

_‘Human life is too cruel for dragons such as us,’_

Then, ever so distant, a feminine voice resounds.

 _“Go, another one of us awaits for you,”_ This…other Subaru speaks so plainly, so dully, it makes Seishirou wonder if he himself is the true cause or if there’s something else that makes him talk so. _“When I arrive from the surface, then we will meet again,”_

Then the mystifying figure tilts their head and pulls the long cloak over their head, but it doesn’t stop the wind from blowing their long raven locks from under it out in the open.

_‘Just like mother…’_

“ _Wait for him. Watch for him. Then we will be together again my…”_

“Sei-chan!”

Seishirou turns around to see Hokuto dashing right at him.

“There you are! I thought you were coming right behind me-UWAH!? Sei-chan, your mouth, your clothes! What’s with all the pink? Are you trying to channel the tree here or something?”

Seishirou laughs clearly, it’s as if nothing lay stuck in it anymore. “Sorry, Hokuto-chan. You know it doesn’t hurt to try…though it appears it had some odd side-effects,”

Hokuto promptly punches his arm harshly, though Seishirou has to admit he felt very little.

“Oh, you!” She begins to tug on his arm and pull him to the west. “Come on! I found a great spot where we can watch over Subaru together! Let’s go!”

He chuckles at her antics and her rambles about ‘just how bad I’ll make you feel for leaving my poor brother all alone,’ but gives one last glance behind him. The figure no longer stands there but instead is out in the middle of ocean, staring upwards at the sky and faux sun.

Seishirou doesn’t feel a need to ask Hokuto about them; he knows she can’t see them like he can. It just wasn’t possible for her to do so. She wasn’t like him or Subaru, but she was important enough to end up the center of all life on Earth for her afterlife. An impressive feat for a human…though he has a feeling Hokuto’s spirit has more in it than it’s letting on.

 _‘Oh well, I’ll figure it out when Subaru-kun arrives,’_ because all will be answered then, no matter how long it takes. ‘ _And then we’ll see if humanity it worth living and if the cycle is to be repeated yet again.’_

He pauses for a moment and then shakes his head. _‘Deciding the fate of the world…since when have I ever cared about that?’_

Why care about a world that has ruined him so? Though, he wonders who Subaru will see when he ends up here.

 _‘Will it be me and his father?’_ That is, if the younger man even knew the man who fathered him. He’ll ask Hokuto about it later. They had all the time in the world now, after all.

He doesn’t think to turn back as the figure in the middle of the sea lets out an inhuman, blood-curdling shriek of longing at the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the Fate/Grand Order fancomic, "Children of the Earth", but this goes a ways off from that bad end plot. The mythological references can still be found littered throughout this however, but that's also because I like and study ancient mythology. 
> 
> And seeing how X features dragons and the beginning of mythology feature's a lot of dragons...well...decided to jump on that connection. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed this little interpretive Seishirou piece!


End file.
